My husband is British born Sri Lankan Muslim and I am British born Caucasian Christian. We are having a baby girl and want to choose a name that is equally fitting for both backgrounds. This greatly limits our choice, and the only suitable names we both like are Zara and Eva. We both prefer Zara, as in French it has a similar meaning to both of our first names, so it has a personal connection for both of us and a meaning that we like.
The problem is that our sister-in-law's sister is also called Zara, and we see or speak to the sister-in-law at least twice a month and naturally we do sometimes see the other Zara or she comes up in conversation. They don't live locally and the other Zara is about 20 years older than our daughter would be.
My husband feels that it will irritate him to hear the two Zara's referred to as big and little Zara (so would prefer us to chose a different name due to this reason only) but I feel that is only a small proportion of the time that this will happen and I feel that we shouldn't be forced out of using the name we prefer when we have so few to choose from in the first place (due to the name having to have Arabic connections and also sound fine from a white English background equally).
What are other people's thoughts on this please?